CHESS #554

The world Junior Championships in Gaziantep, Turkey, ended in unprecedented double success for India. In the last round on Independence Day, Abhijeet Gupta won against English GM David Howell to take the Open. Gupta scored 10 from 13 rounds for a rating performance of 2669. He ended with five successive wins. Meanwhile, Dronavalli Harika clinched the girl’s title. Harika justified her top seeding with 10.5 from 13.

The icing on the cake was second place in both events. In the Open, Parimarjan Negi grabbed clear second with 9.5 and a RP of 2662. In the girls, Mary Ann Gomes shared second on 9 points with Mariya Muzychuk, Kubra Ozturk and Nazi Paikidze. The dual triumph means Indians hold three of the four most prestigious titles. If Humpy lives up to top-seeding at the world women’s championship, they could hold all four!

The WWC is beset by problems due to unfortunate coincidences of timing and location. It’s scheduled to start in Nalchik, Russia on August 28. Nalchik is about 50 km from the border with South Ossetia, where there was heavy fighting in the recent Russian invasion of Georgia. The region is highly unsafe and road-air links have been damaged.

Six Georgians have pulled out of Nalchik. This was expected given that the latter stages of the World Juniors saw Georgians displaying slogans like “Stop Russia!” Eight non-Georgians have also pulled out after negative travel advisories from respective governments. The 64-player field will be truncated. Fide continues to display apparent determination to hold it on schedule.

The Tal Memorial is underway at Moscow with Kramnik under the spotlight in a stellar field. In his last tune up before the title match, Kramnik is 1.5 from 3 with a lovely win versus Shirov balanced by a stunning loss versus Morozevich. Moro leads with 2.5 while Ivanchuk and Leko share second spot with 2.

THE DIAGRAM, WHITE TO PLAY, (Howell Vs Gupta; World Juniors 2008) is from the last round. White can continue normally with 17. Be3 or 17. Ne4. Instead he attacks with 17. h4 a6 18. Bxc6 bxc6 19. h5 gxh5 20. Nxh5 f5! The counter-attack is strong since the natural 21.gxf5 Qxf5 22. Be3 Qh3 is good for black. White tried to bail out with 21. Ng3 fxg4 22. Re4 Rf3 23. Qb3+ Nd5 24. Qc4 Raf8 25. Rxg4? Now 25.Be3 is imperative since 25. - Rxf2 wins after 26. Bh6 R8f7. The tricky 25. - Bc5 also looks strong.

But Gupta chose the cold-blooded 25. -R3f4! 26. Bxf4 exf4 27. Rg5 fxg3 28. fxg3 Qe7 29. Qg4 Ne3 30. Qh5 Qf6 31. Kh1 Nf1 32. Qg4 Qh6+ (0-1). Defences like 33. Qh5, Qh4, Rh5 are all met by 33. - Nxg3+.